Page 73 of Bookshop Cinderella

As he kissed her and tasted her, he slid his hand down, his fingertips tracing her cheek, her jaw, the slender column of her throat, and the hard ridge of her clavicle,then he took his exploration one step further still, his palm opening over her breast.

Despite the stiff barrier of her corset, the contact was exquisite, but it wasn’t nearly enough, and he tore his lips from hers with a groan of agony.

“You haunt my dreams at night,” he murmured, fanning the flames with erotic words as he shaped her breast against his palm. “About bedding you, and taking your virtue, and making you completely mine.”

He kissed her ear, flicking it with his tongue, and she gasped, her knees buckling beneath her. Tightening his arm around her waist, he recaptured her mouth with his and eased her backward, moving them both out of view of anyone who might pass the library doorway. Wedging her between the filing cabinet and the desk, the tiny room’s only scrap of space, he pressed her body to the wall with his own.

Rock-hard now, aching from days of suppressed sexual need, he dipped at the knees, pressing his hips to hers, sliding his cock against her closed thighs.

The pleasure of that tiny move was so luscious that he groaned, and he had to bury his face against the side of her neck to smother it. She must have felt the same, for she jerked her hips, instinctively demanding more. He gave it, flexing his hips against hers again, and then again, torturing himself until his body was screaming for release.

He couldn’t give in to that demand, but what he could do was pleasure her. Still caressing her breast with one hand, he grasped a fistful of linen and silk with the other and began drawing her skirts upward as he pressed kisses to the side of her throat.

When he succeeded in working his hand beneath her skirts, he slid it upward along her thigh, the callus on his palm catching on the delicate muslin of her drawers as he caressed her, savoring the scorching heat of her skin through the thin fabric. When he reached her hip bone, he glided his fingertips back and forth across her belly, feeling her quiver in response.

She was panting now, and when he moved his hand between her thighs, she stirred in his hold, making a soft sound of agitation even as she wrapped her arms around his neck. Deeming the time was right, he turned his hand, cupping her mound.

Her reaction was immediate, a startled cry of pleasure loud enough that he immediately captured her lips in another kiss. They didn’t dare be overheard, and yet, despite the risks, there was nothing, no power on earth, above in heaven, or below in hell, that could have stopped him from sliding his hand inside the slit of her drawers to touch her.

She was warm, wet, insanely inviting, and he groaned against her mouth. He caressed her, gliding his finger between her folds, and she shivered in response, making soft sounds of agitation and pleasure against his mouth as her hips jerked instinctively against his fingertips, driving her toward orgasm.

“Evie?”

Both of them went still at the sound of Delia’s voice calling her name. He tore his mouth from hers, but he had no intention of stopping this glorious interlude. “Wait here,” he whispered. “I’ll get rid of her.”

With that, he stepped back, pulling his hand from beneath her skirts as he raked his other hand through his hair, working to tamp down his raging need for her, but it was useless. The sight of her, flushed and breathless, loosened tendrils of her hair falling around her face, her lips puffy from his kisses and her tawny eyes wide with astonished pleasure at what was happening to her, was so delectable that even the holiest saint couldn’t have curtailed lust. And when Delia’s voice called her name again, he knew he had no time to waste on pointless endeavors like that anyway. “I’ll be right back,” he whispered. Pressing a quick kiss to her lips, he left the muniment room to put an end to this interruption and return to Evie before either of them had time to think too much. Heading for the library door, grabbing a book along the way that might provide a measure of camouflage over the evidence of his raging desire, he crossed the library and stuck his head through the doorway just as Delia turned the corner.

“Looking for Evie?” he called, striving for the most natural voice he could muster as his cousin started toward him.

“I am. She said she was coming to see the library.”

“She was here, but she’s gone again.”

“Already?” Halfway down the corridor, Delia halted. “I’m shocked. I’d have thought to find her rooting happily amid the shelves like a nesting bird.”

“She said something about wanting to be sure her things were packed.”

“Well, I should hope she’s packed by now. We’re leaving for the station in half an hour.”

Half an hour, he calculated, gave him enough time for about fifteen more minutes of pleasure for her and exquisite torture for him before he’d have to let her go. “You might just go upstairs and see if she’s ready,” he suggested. “You won’t want to miss the train.”

“Good idea.” Delia turned away, and he breathed a sigh of relief as she turned the corner and disappeared, but as he turned to rejoin Evie in the muniment room and continue where they’d been forced to leave off, he found his hopes dashed.

The door to the terrace had been closed, but now it was wide open, the soft spring breeze fluttering the draperies.

She was gone.

“Damn,” he breathed, rubbing his hands over his face, his body still afire with unrequited lust. “Damn, damn, damn.”

Lifting his head, he stared at the open doorway, striving to cool his blood, regain his sanity, and return everything to how it had been before, but it wasn’t long before he realized his efforts were in vain.

Nothing could be as it had been before. Helen, he knew now, was not destined to be his duchess. His sensible plan for a marriage of fondness, affection, and nothing more was gone—had been gone, he realized, from the moment he’d stood with Evie Harlow on the ballroom floor at Westbourne House and kissed her for the first time.

Nowhe was choosing a different future, and he could only pray that this time, his choice wouldn’t find him in shreds with an absent duchess and a broken heart. Again.

17

For Evie, the fortnight following the house party was even more frenetic than the one prior to it had been. Peers, parties, and dance practices filled nearly every waking hour, and though Delia assured her such a pace was typical of the season, it wasn’t anything she was accustomed to, and she was forced to insist on time away from it all every now and then, just to catch her breath. But if she thought a few occasional hours away from society would offer the chance for some much-needed peace and quiet, she was mistaken. Any scraps of free time she managed to carve out for herself were taken up with supervising the final renovations to the shop, and as a result, she fell into bed exhausted every night. Sleep, however, proved aggravatingly elusive.

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